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“The president’s feeling feisty,” Axelrod said. “He’s challenged by this mission, and he’s eager to pursue it. That should have been clear on Friday, and it’ll be clear [on Wednesday]. He’s going to make clear that the American people want to see Washington work, for Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve problems. We’re always open to that.”

Officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue said they see no swift resolution to the health-care standoff, although aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Harry Reid worked through the weekend to try to find a solution. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that Obama was “letting the dust settle, if you will, and looking for the best path forward.”

And at week’s end, aides scrambled to respond to yet another crisis that had come out of the blue – the sudden possibility that the Senate would reject the president’s re-nomination of Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman, which would spook markets and embarrass the White House.

On Saturday, Obama made what a White House aide called “a few check-in calls to senators and members of leadership to make sure Bernanke was on track, and he was assured he was.”

Axelrod said Obama’s goal is to “make the agenda of Washington hew to [working Americans’] concerns and build an economy that works for everyone,” and that the State of the Union will include “initiatives that will build on the ones that we’ve already had to get there.”

“That was why we got elected – to push back on the special interests and make the agenda in Washington respond to the concerns of the American people and to build an economy that works for everyone and not just a fortunate few,” Axelrod said.

Plouffe has remained in close touch with top West Wing officials since the inauguration, and had always planned to increase his role heading into the midterms, after winding down his tour for his bestselling campaign memoir, “The Audacity to Win.” But now that’s happening faster.

“We’ve got a good group at the White House,” Axelrod said. “David has been in our family throughout, and everybody there has worked closely with David. He’s been off writing a book for a year. He’s going to be consulting more intensively this year because we want to put our best team on the field. But he’s not coming to work at the White House. He’s not replacing anybody. He’s just going to be more involved in the planning, particularly as it relates to the 2010 races.”

Plouffe has the specific assignment of helping the party’s candidates for House, Senate and governor’s seats replicate the Obama campaign’s innovative use of the Web and grassroots supporters for social networking, field organizing and volunteer deployment.

“We have equities in these campaigns, and we want to make sure that they maximize their ability to win,” Axelrod said. “He’s as skilled as anybody in the country, and has an amazing focus and organizational intensity. But he’s not going to be working hands-on with campaigns. He’s going to basically be helping develop the plans and review everyone once in awhile [to see] where we’re at.”

Plouffe helped pull Obama from behind to defeat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Then in the fall, Plouffe mobilized an unprecedented army of supporters while running the most expensive campaign in American history.

In an op-ed article in Sunday’s Washington Post, Plouffe called the Tuesday vote in Massachusetts “a resounding wake-up call,” but concluded: “If Democrats will show the country we can lead when it's hard, we may not have perfect election results, but November will be nothing like the nightmare that talking heads have forecast.”

One of Plouffe’s prescriptions for his party echoed his mantra whenever the Obama for America campaign hit a rough patch: “No bed-wetting.”

"Aides believe the State of the Union speech will help Obama regain his political footing after a traumatic week that saw his health-care reform plan threatened with extinction because of the party’s loss of the Massachusetts seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to a Republican who campaigned on an outsider message of authenticity. "

Clue #1 that Obama and crew totally missed the MA election. Brown didn't campaign on "authenticity," he campaigned on KILLING TERRORISTS, getting RID of LIBERALS and damning OBAMACARE to the dustbin of bad liberal ideas.

"Obama road-tested his new message during a town hall Friday in Ohio, when he said 20 times that he will fight for average Americans."

That "town hall"--that is: Obama's first campaign speech and meeting this year--was a trainwreck.

Obama's pathetic. And given how totally inept and inexperienced this Marxist is, and how far he and his thugocrats and advisers over-reached, he's essentially a lame-duck, second-termer now.

What's scary about what he's doing now and what Axelrod and others are saying about our "fiesty" president? One thing is that they really do seem to believe that Dee Nile and Dee Lusion are people rather than imbalanced emotional states.

"Mustachioed fourflusher and Presidential advisor David Axelrod, attempts to apply his patented "Axel-Grease" to help spin the current administration's failure on many fronts into yet another democratic positive by attempting to link myriad failures to George W. Bush." -AP Photo (Always Partisan)

It's not so much that the dems took Mass for granted as it is about the objection to policies being forced upon us all and the unbridled spending that is out of control. They insist on spending money they don't have and doesn't belong to them to begin with. The dems just don't seem to get it and are so out of touch with the people. By the way, how much longer can Bush be blamed for what has happened this past 12 months? That's old, tired and lame!

Watch his numbers keep plummeting... America spoke and those of you in the White House apparently chose not to listen. You do not advocate for the middle class. You are trying to destroy the middle class and we're not going down without a fight.